October 20, 1919

The recently concluded campaign for the formation and dispatch of detachments of workers for harvest collection has clearly revealed that this measure of paramount state importance proceeded in a disorganized manner, above all due to the absence among local organs of the People's Commissariat of Food and other Soviet organs enlisted in organizing these works of preliminary accounting of the necessary number of worker hands, blanket requisitions for them from provincial organs, and lack of awareness on the part of district Soviet organs regarding the dispatch of harvest detachments. Requisitions for worker hands were presented by provincial centers without consultation with district or volost organs and without correlation with actual local need and any verification on the ground, which had as its direct consequence the unproductive diversion of worker hands, the clogging of transport, the return of many harvest detachments, and the necessity of compensating such unutilized detachments both through wages and provisions at the expense of the People's Commissariat of Food.

Particularly blanket and excessive requisitions were presented by the Saratov, Samara, and Ufa provincial food committees, notably by the Saratov revolutionary committee, from which requisitions came for tens of thousands of worker hands, although in fact only several thousand of them were utilized. It was revealed that district organs were so uninformed about the dispatch of harvest detachments that the arrival of the detachments provoked inquiries regarding their assignment, clearly testifying to the absence of minimal coordination and communication in this measure between provincial centers and districts.

Directing special attention of local organs of Soviet power to the experience of the just-concluded harvest collection campaign, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense *demands* henceforth extraordinary caution and precision in requisitions for worker hands for whatever reason, and gives warning of the strictest responsibility henceforth for persons guilty of presenting unverified requisitions not corresponding to actual need for worker hands.

Chairman of the Council of
Workers' and Peasants' Defense

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)